The present invention is a flow process for producing a concentrated flow of lipids in solvent. Lipids are frequently dissolved in solvent during processing designed to separate the lipids into two or more usable fractions. Such processes are often referred to as fractional crystallization separations and are generally comprised of dissolving the lipid in a solvent, cooling the resulting solution until the desired crystalline fraction is formed, and then separating the crystalline fraction from the remaining liquor. The resulting fractions of lipid in solvent are concentrated by filtering, settling, or evaporating the solvent. These concentrating methods are all very expensive and require expensive equipment to be effective. The present process provides a method for significantly reducing the expense of separating the lipids from solvent thereby producing a concentrated lipid flow.
In accordance with invention principles, a product stream enriched in lipids is produced from a feed stream leaner in same. A chamber with a feed inlet means intermediate to outlets remote therefrom can be used. Internal net flows are established in the chamber, one being depleted of lipid as it travels towards its particular outlet; another being a product flow enriched in lipid as it travels to its outlet by virtue of a net lipid transfer from said first flow. The feed stream preferably is a solution of lipid solute in solvent, the internal flows for the most part are mixtures of solid phase lipid in a vehicle of solution; however, the product flow preferably is totally in liquid phase. The conditions for establishing and maintaining aforesaid conditions are set forth hereinafter.
One advantage of the present invention is that a flow of lipids in solvent can be concentrated without the expensive equipment heretofore required. Another advantage is that the lipid composition as well as the lipid concentration in the flow of the present process can be controlled by controlling the composition of the feed and the composition of the precipitates transported into the product flow. A still further advantage is that the present process operates with a lower energy requirement than previous concentrating processes for lipids in solvent. Yet another advantage of the present process is that it can be integrated with a fractional crystallization separation in a very efficient fashion. These and other advantages will be apparent from the detailed description of the invention.